


young & stupid

by scully_carter



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, High School AU, Pining, Punk Peggy, lots of fluff, this is gonna be super cliche & cheesy probably, wow so original I know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 08:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6898678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scully_carter/pseuds/scully_carter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a super cheesy high school au<br/>im cartson trash</p><p>(rated teen for language)</p>
            </blockquote>





	young & stupid

Jack drummed his fingers on the desk, glancing at the clock above the door. 2:57. He could be at home right now, studying for his exams or shooting hoops in the driveway or marathoning Netflix in the basement. He could be doing _literally anything else_ right now, but no, he was stuck in detention.

He sighed and twisted in his seat to glare at the clock again. 2:58. The minutes were rolling by agonizingly slow. Watching the hands slowly tick forward was like watching molasses drip off a spoon, or waiting for a YouTube video to buffer. He'd been here since quarter to. _How about that, huh? Early to detention,_ he thought to himself with a snort.

The door banged open, and he almost fell out of his seat. A girl whirled into the room with the angry force of a winter gale, or an army tank, her muddy combat boots stomping against the tacky linoleum tiles of the detention room. She barely even glanced at him, throwing herself down in the desk in front of his.

"Hi Carter." Jack ventured, because of course this earthquake on legs was Peggy Carter.

"Hullo." she replied, rather subdued, in her crisp English accent.

"What're you in here for?" Jack asked, propping his elbows up on the desktop and leaning forward. Peggy avoided his eyes, twirling a finger through her brown curls. "I punched a boy in the face."

Jack let out a low whistle. "Damn, Marge."

She glared at him. "He deserved it." she said fiercely, her brown eyes filled with fire. "He called me a slut."

Jack leaned back in his seat, slouching so that his knees brushed the bottom of the desk, lifting it slightly off the ground, and sized her up. She wore dark jeans with huge rips in them, showing a fair amount of pale, smooth skin, and a tight black t-shirt under her red plaid flannel shirt.

When he opened his mouth, Peggy gave him a stern look that made him close it again quickly. "I won't hesitate to punch you as well," she threatened. Jack put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I wasn't gonna-" He was cut off when the door swung open again, and Vice Principal Dooley walked in.

Jack snuck a quick glance at the clock. 3:05. Their detention was supposed to start five minutes ago.

"Alright, delinquents." Dooley said briskly. "Guess what you'll be doing for the next forty-five minutes?" Neither Jack nor Peggy replied. Dooley dropped a stack of textbooks onto each of their desks. The books landed on the desktops with a loud thump, making Jack flinch. Peggy sat as motionless as a marble statue. Dooley tossed them both an eraser. "Get busy." he said, sitting down behind his desk with his coffee cup and a newspaper.

Peggy sighed softly and opened the textbook, setting to work erasing all the answers and profane doodles scrawled in the margins by previous generations of 'delinquents.' Jack flipped open a book from his stack, and he almost groaned when he saw that someone had covered in the first page with about twenty crude drawings of male genitalia. This was going to be an excruciating forty-five minutes.

About halfway through, Peggy turned around in her seat and held up one of her textbooks for Jack to see. The words _'Mother fucker titty sucker'_ were written in a messy, blockish hand.

"Wow," Jack said in a low voice, glancing toward Dooley. The Vice Principal was immersed in his newspaper. "Impressive. It even rhymes."

"I call it 'Juvenile Impiety.'" Peggy whispered, grinning. It was a wicked little grin, a quick flash of perfectly straight white teeth. Jack felt his own mouth curl into a smile almost involuntarily.

"It's a shame, really, that they're making us erase this. Some of it's genius." Jack said, flipping his book upside-down so Peggy could see where someone had written _'your mom'_ underneath one of the questions.

Peggy snorted. "Genius." she agreed drily. Dooley shuffled his newspaper, and quickly she turned around again. Jack found himself staring at the back of her head, studying the way her glossy curls cascaded over her shoulders. He shook his head to clear it. _Focus, Thompson._ he scolded himself, diligently pressing his eraser against the paper once more. _Just twenty more minutes, then you're outta here._

The twenty minutes passed at a snail's pace, and Jack found his eyes straying to Peggy more and more often as they dragged on, finding solace from his boredom in the way she brushed her hair behind her ear with a slender hand, the red polish on her fingernails glinting in the harsh glow from the LED ceiling lights, and in the way her fitted t-shirt hugged the curves of her upper body. At some point she'd taken off her flannel.

Finally, Dooley stood. "Okay, time's up. See you two hoodlums tomorrow."

Peggy followed Jack out, the chunky heels of her combat boots thumping against the linoleum of the hallway. A custodian laboured with a sopping wet mop in front of a bank of lockers, and Peggy politely bid him goodnight as they passed. Jack was struck by the sudden, guilt-filled realization that he never really gave the janitors so much as a second glance.

"You got a ride home?" Jack asked once they were standing on the front steps. He fished his car keys out of his pocket. Peggy, shivering in the January air, was shrugging her flannel back on.

"God, it felt like summer in that classroom." she lamented. "Dooley had the heat on so high it was like a sauna." She looked up at him. "I've got a drive, yeah. Jarvis is picking me up."

Jack knew Jarvis. Well, no, not really-Jarvis hung out mostly with Howard Stark and that crowd, and with Peggy. How those two became friends, Jack had no idea. But they were pretty much inseparable. Peggy Carter and Edwin Jarvis, partners in crime. Jack's stomach gave an unpleasant little twist at the thought. _Was it...jealousy?_ he wondered.

He hurriedly dismissed the weird feeling, already beginning to descend the stone steps. "Okay. Well...see ya tomorrow, Marge." he said, giving her a mock salute.

"Yeah. See you." Peggy replied, her plump red-painted lips curving into a small smile as she saluted back.

Jack felt his heart do a little flip, and he turned away before he said something stupid. Surely this sudden feeling of closeness with Peggy, this bond they seemed to have developed over the past forty-five minutes, was just a...comradely feeling. They were just sort-of friends now. Detention buddies. This was not, Jack assured himself, the beginnings of something else.

He did not have a crush on Peggy fucking Carter.

* * *

 

"Was that Jack Thompson?" Jarvis asked when Peggy clambered into the passenger seat of his Ford.

"Yes. He had detention as well." she replied, reaching over to turn down his 50s music. "You're so old-fashioned." she complained.

"Well, I'm not putting on that garbage you listen to." Jarvis retorted, pulling away from the curb. "My music isn't garbage-" Peggy started to say, but Jarvis cut her off. "Driver picks the music." he singsonged.

"So what was Jack in detention for?" he inquired.

"I don't know." Peggy answered. "I didn't think to ask."

"Well, his reason can't have been very exciting compared to yours." Jarvis teased. "I'm pretty sure you gave poor Timothy a nosebleed." Peggy rolled her eyes. "I'm never going to hear the end of this."

"Howard has been singing your praises all afternoon. Of course, he's probably also a little afraid he's next." Jarvis said with a chuckle.

Peggy groaned. "Howard is a prat." Jarvis made a small _tsk_ sound at the insult, but then again, he didn't explicitly disagree with her either.

He slowed the car and carefully turned into her driveway. Almost everything Jarvis did while driving could be described as _careful_. He was an extremely cautious driver, which was probably why he had his license and Peggy didn't. Everything Peggy did while driving could be described as _careless_. Or _hotheaded_ , or _negligent_. Or, as Howard so eloquently put it: _For fucks' sake, Peg, turn on your blinker!_

"There you are." Jarvis said, unlocking her door for her.

"Thank you for the drive, Jarvis. See you tomorrow."

"It was no trouble. Goodnight, Peggy." he replied, waving at her through the windshield as she fished her house key out of her knapsack to unlock the front door.

"Peggy? Is that you? I though I heard a car."

"Hi, Mum." Peggy said, shutting the door behind her and bending to unlace her boots.

"Detention, Margaret, really?" her father sighed, peering at her over the top of his newspaper in a manner that reminded her very much of Vice Principal Dooley.

Peggy's mum looked at her with a mixture of distress and disappointment, an expression that didn't go well with the cheery kitchen setting. "Yes, the school called to inform us that you physically assaulted another student?" she said, wiping her hands on her apron and placing them on her hips.

Peggy didn't meet her parents' eyes as she took her place at the table.

"Well, young lady? Aren't you going to explain yourself?" her father prompted, giving her a stern glare.

There was a loud ruckus as Peggy's older brother Michael pounded down the stairs, darting into the kitchen. "There you are, Peggy! What'd old Timothy do to you, eh?" he teased, reaching over to ruffle her hair fondly. She caught his wrist, glaring at him, and he withdrew, grinning at her.

"Does everyone know about that?" she moaned. Still, she was glad to see Michael. He would support her in this, just like he always did, even if their parents disagreed. Michael was the only one she fully trusted to have her back, the only one she felt truly knew her.

"This is very serious." her mum scolded. "Michael, don't encourage her. Sit down and be quiet-dinner's not yet ready." Michael gave Peggy a cheeky little wink before plopping into his seat.

"If you must know," Peggy told him quietly. "He called me a slut." Michael's eyes widened with disgust and anger, a scowl making a little crease between his brows. "Well, I hope you punched him good and hard for that."

"I gave him a nosebleed." Peggy said, feeling a bit smug, and very pleased she had an older brother like Michael, who was smiling proudly. "That's my girl!"

"Oh, honestly, Michael." their mum cried in exasperation, setting down their plates with perhaps a little more force than was necessary.

"What did that boy call you?" Peggy's father demanded, his eyes narrowing beneath bushy, furrowed brows. Peggy looked up at him then, finally, answering his question in a clear, steady voice, "A slut."

Amanda Carter frowned at her husband. "Harrison, not you too."

"The boy was calling her inappropriate names. Sounds like it was self defence to me-but, ah, you might've taken it a bit too far, Peggy." he added hurriedly when Amanda gave him a withering look.

Peggy's mum sighed, pressing her hands to her temples. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Well, just make sure it doesn't happen again, okay, Peggy?"

"Yes, mum." Peggy said. And she meant it, she really did.

"Oh, what am I going to do with you, Margaret?" Amanda muttered under her breath, shaking her head forlornly as she cut into her slice of shepherd's pie.

***

That night, Peggy couldn't sleep. It was like her mind was on the fast track. She kept replaying the whole Timothy incident over and over in her head.

_"Hey, Carter, where'd you get those jeans, the Dumpster?"_

_"Don't pay him any mind, English, he's just tryin' to get a rise outta you."_ Angie had whispered, squeezing Peggy's wrist, as if to rein her in, like she knew what poor, impulsive Peggy was about to get herself into.

_"Hey! Carter! I'm talking to you, you slut!"_

Peggy had turned and thrown her fist into his face, felt something crack under her knuckles, warm blood spattering her hand as Timothy fell to the floor, clutching his bleeding face, and the world seemed to slow around her...

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> so I'm pretty bad at sticking to a regular updating schedule I posted a fic like a month ago and I haven't written for it since then so like don't expect too much from me
> 
> comments & kudos are more than welcome


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